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Former Google, Twitter Execs Launch ‘Homebrew’ Venture Firm

Two well-known Silicon Valley Web executives have launched a venture capital firm to finance and advise early-stage technology companies, yet another sign of the growing appetite of investors to place bets on younger startups.

It took former Twitter executive Satya Patel, 38 years old, and longtime former Google and YouTube executive Hunter Walk, 39, just four months to raise a $35 million fund–largely from a university endowment, a foundation, and two other institutional investors.

Their firm, called Homebrew (an homage to a computer hobbyist group that formed in Silicon Valley in the 1970s), won’t just write checks. As former product executives, Patel and Walk say they plan to take an active role in their portfolio companies, helping to shape their products and organizations in what venture capitalists call the “seed” stage.